Platform: Nintendo DS
ERSB: E10
Genre: RPG
Number of Players: 1-4
Developer: SquareEnix
Release Date: September 29, 2009

The much-anticipated continuation of the Kingdom Hearts saga has arrived! Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is the first of three new games to be released, this one giving the Nintendo DS some love. This installment features on Roxas’ days in the Organization, his adventures with Axel, and introduces a new member, Number XIV, Xion. While the addition of a new member had a lot of people worried about keeping the essence of the Organization XIII, her presence doesn’t hinder anything. In fact, seeing a young, sweet girl character in contrast to the fiesty Larxene is a pleasant relief.

The main screen of the game gives you two options: Story mode and Mission Mode. Let’s take a look at story mode first.

The story opens with Roxas and Axel sitting on Twilight Town’s clock tower talking over sea-salt ice cream. Roxas mentions how long it had been since he first joined the group, then the pair start reminiscing about the past. Throughout the game, you, the player, go on missions as Roxas, occasionally being joined by other members of the Organization, and learn more about him.

As far as gameplay goes, it’s pretty straight-forward. You don’t need to use the stylus for much of anything, so it plays a lot like a Gameboy Advance game. Your first 5 missions are all tutorial and you can go back to any mission you’ve played to review or just try again. Basic A is Attack, d-pad to move, left button to pull up a shortcut menu that you can customize for your four favorite or most needed abilities kind of deal. The X  button navigates the attack-item-magic menu and A is select for anything. B is cancel. Sometimes, if you’re not used to the controls, you can accidentally back out of a menu or screen that you were working on. Granted, it’s not that hard to navigate the main menu, which is accessible with the start button.

The main menu has some interesting things and boasts some of the new and unique features of this game. The holo-missions option you open up after completing a set number of missions allows you to replay missions you’ve completed either to try to get all of the treasure chests or complete ordeals, the challenges you unlock with Ordeal Signets. Yep, another new feature. With the prizes from completing ordeals, you can exchange them with the moogle in the gray area for prizes and fun things!

You also get the use of Limit Breaks. Some people may remember these from games like Final Fantasy 7. When your HP drops into the yellow, you can hold the A button until Roxas flashes. Once he flashes, you have use of your Limit! You can do a lot of really quick attacks for big damage. This is especially useful for boss battles or enemies with a lot of HP. Just be sure you have potions or hi-potions set to your shortcuts or you may find yourself starting over.

The Panels menu is really what makes this game. Instead of the normal way of gaining abilities and magic and keeping them, you get to customize the panels to fit each mission. If you know you’ll need a lot of magic, then you can stock up on double-cast, all the magic you can fit, and ethers. If you know that you’ll need to dodge, then dodge roll and block are your best bets. You can save your panels, so it’s no problem to customize one for magic and another for attack. It also helps that both Saix and your mission briefing offer tips on what would be the best panel arrangement.

Another interesting thing is leveling up. Yes, you still get experience. Yes, you still level. No, you don’t just collect levels like usual. Each level up grants you a panel that you can put onto the board. You get pieces that double each level, so by linking one level up panel, you gain two levels and all the bonuses of two levels. It’s the same with increasing the number of items you can hold. The good thing is that after a certain point, you automatically unlock an empty panel after each mission.

One of my big issues was this was Square Enix’s weirdness with the cutscenes. In numerous scenes, Xion’s hood would be up when Axel or Roxas talked, but whenever it zoomed closer to her, it would be down. Whenever she spoke, her icon by her text would always be her face, not the hood. Little things like that were distracting and annoying, but overall it doesn’t ruin this game.Another issue was that some of the missions tended to get repetitive and boring. One type in particular, the Shadow Glob missions, were especially annoying for those who aren’t that great with aerial combat. Reconnaissance missions were a lot of fun, even if they make the player think. Then you have your standard defeat boss or collect hearts missions, which are simple enough.

The music was okay, but there wasn’t much variety. The voice acting was wonderful, but there wasn’t nearly enough of it. For a DS game, it’s nice, but other than the occasional chuckles slipped in during textual dialogue, it leaves you wanting more.

On top of all of that, you have mission mode. While playing through the story mode, you find unity signets. These signets will unlock that mission in Mission mode. Mission mode, you guessed it, is just replaying through things you’ve done in story mode… but with friends! You and up to three of your friends take control of Organization members and go at it.

Overall, this was a lovely game. Any Kingdom Hearts fan should definitely pick it up. With a price tag of only $35, it really is worth the money. If you aren’t a fan of the series or not as obsessive as some, this is still a nice play. Three difficulty levels make it a good game for people that have never played a Kingdom Hearts game to those that power-play the Playstation 2 versions on Proud, full of challenges for both. If you have the chance, I highly recommend buying this game. If you can’t, it’s definitely worth a rent just to get a taste. You’ll be wanting to buy it after.